To honor our colleagues, clients or custom- ers, our neighbors, friends or family with disabilities necessitates understanding
their numbers, conditions, and perspectives.

“There is this space that exists between most
people with disabilities [PWD] and most people
who don’t have them,” writes a law student with
Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, which affects connective tissues, on her blog, Brilliant Mind Broken
Body. 1 Advances in healthcare, legislation, psychology and other fields help bridge this gap. Individuals who display a growing mindfulness of
PWD lessen the divide, too. But problems persist and new concerns surface, as solutions continue to be offered. To honor PWD remains a
work in progress on macro and micro levels
everywhere.

Statistics

The heterogeneity among PWD makes quan-tification difficult. But the World Health Survey
and the Global Burden of Disease estimate that
PWD comprise between 15 percent and 19 percent of the international population. 2 Those figures render as follows: 2 percent to 4 percent
with “severe” disabilities (for example, the difficulties in functioning associated with dementia,
Down syndrome, quadriplegia, depression, or
blindness), 3 and the bulk with mild to moderate
disabilities (related to, for example, hearing impairment, back problems, asthma, learning disorders, or arthritis). 4

These totals, however, fluctuate because of
the changing earmarks of disability. Infectious
diseases that historically contributed to disability
are declining, such as poliomyelitis, plunging
from approximately 350,000 cases in 1988 to

406 in 2013, 5 and leprosy, plummeting from

5. 2 million cases in 1985 to 189,000 in 2012.6

However, chronic, noninfectious sources ofdisability, such as respiratory and cardiovascularillnesses, psychological disorders, cancer, anddiabetes, are rising due to lifestyle changes, pop-ulation aging, and other factors; in low- tomoderate-income countries, they “account for66.5 percent of all years lived with a disability.” 7In addition, the average life expectancy is now at70 (ranging from 60 in low-income countries to80 in high-income countries), 8 and older adultsregister higher rates of disability than youngeradults and children, at 46 percent for age 60 orolder versus 15 percent for age 15 to 59.9 Preva-lence of disabling conditions also depends onfactors that vary by era, geography, economics,ethnicity and other demographics, by efforts atprevention, innovations in medicine and accessto healthcare, by nutrition habits, by environ-mental degradation, by geopolitics, and by war. 10

Threats

Disability is not just a function of physical oremotional diagnosis. The world around PWDhampers their quality of life, literally and figura-tively. Doors without automatic openers, restroomstalls that swing inward and prevent privacy forthose in wheelchairs since the portal cannot shutafter them, emergency systems that signal dan-ger through only one sensory modality, medicalproviders who do not endorse childbearing forPWD, and a dearth of ramps, elevators, Braille,paratransit, and disabled parking spaces allharm this stratum. And outdated viewpoints stillinfluence the public and policymaking. Peoplemake problematic assertions such as “You’re re-ally pretty for someone in a wheelchair” and askproblematic questions such as “What happenedto you?” 11 And more steps must be taken in em-ployment opportunities and educational settingsfor PWD. 12 For example, U.S. rates of employ-ment were estimated at 73.2 percent for nondis-abled individuals versus 38.1 percent for PWDAlong these lines, underemployment, unem-ployment, and lower pay increase numerous risksfor PWD. For poverty: disparities vary by coun-try, gender, and ethnicity and are only partiallyexplained by differences in productivity. 17 For in-adequate healthcare: PWD are less likely to haveprivate insurance. 18 For abuse and violence, par-ticularly among women with disabilities; in fact,unemployment is associated with reliance oncaregivers and social isolation and may contrib-ute to women’s higher chances of threats of vio-lence, of attempted violence, of being physicallyabused, and of experiencing unwanted sex. 19

Models

Clinical psychology professor Rhoda Olkin
— who directs the Institute on Disability and
Health Psychology at the California School of
Professional Psychology at Alliant International
University San Francisco — identifies two problematic worldviews about disabilities that continue to resonate: the moral model and the medical model. 20 Both constrain identity when imposed on or internalized by PWD.